Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response

[Marty Lederman is a Professor at Georgetown Law School and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel from 2009 to 2010, and an Attorney Advisor in OLC from 1994-2002] Most of the participants in this Insta-Symposium, and in earlier OJ posts, have understandably focused their attention on the question of whether a U.S. military strike on Syria would violate the U.N. Charter. I’ll address that question in a subsequent post, in the context of some remarks on the forthcoming congressional debate. But before...

So far, the 2020s have been a great decade for books on the history of international humanitarian law. 2020 saw the publication of Giovani Mantilla’s exceptional Lawmaking Under Pressure , on the history of Common Article 3; 2021 gave us Samuel Moyn’s Humane , a powerful critique on the idea that war can be humanised; and now 2022 starts off with Boyd van Dijk’s Preparing for War . I am extremely happy that we are showcasing his book in this symposium, as I am convinced it is an immediate must-read...

This post is part of the Yale Journal of International Law Volume 37, Issue 2 symposium. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. [Bonnie Docherty is a lecturer on law and senior clinical instructor in the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic. Tyler Giannini is a clinical professor and clinical director of the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program.] In their thought-provoking article “Avoiding Apartheid: Climate Change Adaptation and Human Rights Law,” Margaux Hall and David Weiss argue that human rights law has...

This week we’re hosting a symposium on both lead articles in the October 2013 edition of the American Journal of International Law. Today and tomorrow, Kofi Kufuor, Solomon Ebobrah and Horace Adjolohoun discuss “A New International Human Rights Court for West Africa: The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice” by Karen Alter, Larry Helfer and Jacqueline McAllister: The Court of Justice for the Economic Community of West African States has been transformed from an interstate tribunal for resolving disputes over ECOWAS economic rules into a court with far-reaching human rights jurisdiction....

[Brad Roth is Professor of Political Science & Law at Wayne State University.] This post is part of the Harvard International Law Journal Volume 53(2) symposium. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. Ozan Varol’s article, “The Democratic Coup d’Etat,” performs a crucial service in reorienting assessments of extra-constitutional changes in government so as to emphasize substance over form. He refutes the commonplace idea – most recently championed by Richard Albert – that coups are inherently and inevitably undemocratic and illegitimate, “Democratic Revolutions,” forthcoming...

...led the Graduate School of Political Studies, where he taught international law and wrote the first international law textbook in Persian. Informed by Western textbooks, Pirnia’s engagement with international law was equally doctrinal and Eurocentric. The topics in his textbook included history, subjects, treaties, diplomatic and consular law, and the usual international signposts. This trend persisted broadly until the 1980s. Iranian international law scholars who either graduated from European universities or studied in Iranian academic institutions under European-educated scholars taught the courses and wrote the textbooks. They rarely challenged Eurocentric...

...a long way towards convincing me, but there are some other implications and cavils worth noting: I view this as an (already!) seminal contribution to how comparative law and the transplant process works. But the book has important prescriptions for international law as well, as Linos shows in her conclusion. For one thing, it justifies the efforts to pass global conventions, even nonbinding ones pointing to best practices: endorsements from international organizations can leverage political support for world-bettering policies. Second, where some view international law as rather undemocratic, the story...

[Mohamed S. Helal is an Assistant Professor of Law, Moritz College of Law & Faculty Affiliate, Mershon Center for International Security Studies – The Ohio State University.] Introduction Dr. John Heieck’s A Duty to Prevent Genocide: Due Diligence Obligations Among the P5 is a lucid, well-argued, and extensively researched book. It is essential reading for academics and practitioners who have an interest in various areas of Public International Law, including jus ad bellum, international criminal law, and state responsibility. The core argument of this book is that all states are...

[Steve Vladeck is Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Scholarship at American University Washington College of Law.] This is the third day in our discussion of Professor Dickinson’s book Outsourcing War and Peace: Preserving Public Values in a World of Privatized Foreign Affairs. Links to the related posts can be found below. One needn’t look far for proof that the issues raised by Laura Dickinson’s Outsourcing War and Peace with regard to the absence of liability for military contractors are at the forefront of contemporary law and policy. If...

a chaotic fashion, hence making it nearly impossible to discern the current legal framework regulating these instances, at a closer look patters emerge. Notably, the analysis conducted in my book has identified that, while the effectiveness doctrine no longer reflects the current legal framework, legitimacy is emerging as a possible alternative with regard to interventions in favour of governments and rebels alike. Specifically, the pattern suggests that human rights are being used as a parameter of legitimacy. As highlighted by the contributions to this symposium, discussions on foreign interventions trigger...

book is divided into three main parts looking at the evolution of the notions of sovereignty, intervention, and human rights (Part I), the interventions in favour of governments (Part II), and the interventions in favour of opposition groups (Part III). Since my area of research has focused on armed opposition groups, I am going to restrict my comments to some of the questions discussed in Part III of the book. One particular issue I find fascinating is the examination of the legitimacy of rebels in international law (in Chapter 6)....

as well as most legal scholars. The book also does something almost unprecedented: tell the story of the IMT and NMTs together, which is necessary for understanding both. The book’s only competitor in that regard is Telford Taylor’s wonderful book The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir — but Taylor’s book is, as the title indicates, a memoir, not an “objective” legal history. Anyone interested in Nuremberg, international criminal law, or transitional justice will want to pick up a copy of The Betrayal. To appropriate Larry Solum: read...